


Inoculation

by tenlittlebullets



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Because They Might Torture Me, Community: makinghugospin, Demisexuality, Gay Male Character, Kink Meme, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:26:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenlittlebullets/pseuds/tenlittlebullets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If ever I were to discover firsthand what it is to lie with another man, by God, Combeferre, I would not have it be by rape in some squalid prison cell." Enjolras spends a night in La Force, and comes out of it with a rather unusual request for one of his trusted lieutenants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inoculation

**Author's Note:**

> [Kinkmeme prompt](http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13024.html?thread=6186720#t6186720): "Ami A is willing to help Ami B with losing his virginity/figuring out blows/handjobs/spanking/pain play/etc Becuase They Might Torture Me. But cuddle him? Ami A is beginning to consider that something else might be going on." This wound up only halfway fitting the prompt, but Because They Might Torture Me has glorious potential as an excuse for kinky shenanigans and negotiated scenes. I will totally campaign for it to become a Les Mis fandom trope.

Enjolras returned from his brief stint in the prison of La Force apparently none the worse for wear, save a black eye that he assured them he'd picked up during the riot. "It's not the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in," he told them dryly, "but it was only for one night. They rounded up a whole group of us for disorderly conduct. There'll be a fine to pay, that's all." And he opened the meeting without further ado. If he held himself with unusually stiff dignity the whole evening, or started when Courfeyrac clapped a hand on his shoulder from behind, the rest of them chalked it up to lack of sleep and said nothing.

Nevertheless, when he pulled Combeferre aside later to ask, "Are you busy tonight? There is something I would discuss with you, and in private," it wasn't entirely unexpected, either for Combeferre or for the handful of Friends of the ABC within earshot. Some of them were more implicated in the secrets of the group than others, and Combeferre was in deeper than anyone except Courfeyrac and Enjolras himself. Enjolras was a man with something pressing on his mind, and Combeferre as well as the others assumed that a shadowy detail in their plans had been thrown out of balance by some matter involved in the arrest.

The two of them excused themselves early to go confer in Combeferre's flat, which, being not far from the medical school, was closer than Enjolras' lodgings on the Right Bank. It was a discreet garret room, occupying half the attic of a building standing one story higher than the surrounding ones; the other half being used for storage, it was without neighbors on any side. The windows faced the courtyard rather than the street, and opened on more sky than courtyard; a back staircase permitted access without passing under the nosy eye of the concierge. The inmost circle of the Friends of the ABC sometimes took advantage of its privacy to meet there, but Enjolras knew better than to ask whether it could be used as a more general point of rendez-vous with prospective allies. Combeferre had his reasons for discretion.

The flat was barer than it had been at the last such meeting. Half the furniture was gone, Combeferre's suits and linen hanging sadly from a curtain-rod for lack of a wardrobe; brighter squares on the sun-faded wallpaper attested to paintings and prints that had been taken down. The spare bed, which had only ever been there as a fig-leaf of decency in the first place, was stripped bare even of a mattress, and the other bed was only rumpled on one side. Enjolras looked around, taking it in. He coughed with unaccustomed awkwardness and murmured, "So are you no longer living with your botanist?"

"He's married now," said Combeferre curtly. "I've heard he and his wife have a lovely cottage in Auteuil."

"Then you are... unattached?"

"I won't make an adulterer of him, if that's what you're asking. Even sin has its morality." Combeferre drew a chair up to the table, then, realizing he lacked another chair, dragged chair and table alike over next to the bed, where he took a seat. "Come on, sit. Out with it. You've never been much good at small talk, especially about affairs as unconventional as mine."

Enjolras sat and regarded him thoughtfully. "It might not have been an irrelevant question. The thing I wanted to discuss with you is... largely a personal matter, you see."

"I assumed it was to do with your stay in La Force."

"It is."

"Nothing terrible happened there, I hope?"

"Not as such." Enjolras stared at the table. "They did mix us in with a rather rough crowd, but nothing came of it except a few courtyard scuffles. I doubt you'll be surprised to hear that the black eye is from one of those, not the riot."

"Enjolras, get to the point or I'll start to worry."

Enjolras sighed and looked around the room, his eyes flickering over all the signs of Combeferre's absent lover. Former lover. In all their long acquaintance, Combeferre had never seen Enjolras look so uncomfortable. "We have all accepted that we might die or be thrown in prison, have we not? I do not wish to reopen the dispute over how actively we should prepare for it--or at least not until we have all the lieutenants together to discuss the need for training to resist interrogation--"

Combeferre pursed his lips; it was an old argument of theirs. "Enjolras, I still can't countenance--"

"Leave it, Combeferre. I'm now more convinced than ever that it's necessary, but we should wait until we can discuss it with the others. My point is this. There is something I did not foresee when I considered the possibility of prison, or rather a practice that I had heard about but did not think to apply to our situation. It is common enough in prisons, in the navy, in any institution where men are confined together for long periods of time without women--"

Combeferre's face went stony, if it was possible to do so and blush at the same time. "I hope--I very much hope--that you have not come here to consult me as an expert," he said, "now that the subject of opportunistic sodomy has been brought to your attention." His voice was tight, with a suppressed tremor that broke into a shake on the word _sodomy_ before regaining equilibrium.

Enjolras deflated; there was no other word for it. The stiffness that had been with him all day seeped out of his posture, his shoulders sloped forward, his face softened into an expression that came curiously close to vulnerability. He reached across the table to clasp Combeferre's hand. "No, my friend," he said softly, "it's only that I had the impression such practices were voluntary. I did not expect to spend my one night in prison defending my chastity with my fists."

Combeferre clutched Enjolras' hand, stricken. "You weren't--"

"None of them succeeded, no."

"Even so, I'm sorry to hear of it." And he was, heartily, and guilty besides, for having let his pride on a sore subject blind him to all the signs that his friend was upset, and for having spoken so callously when Enjolras had spoken so personally.

Enjolras shrugged. "I was prepared to die, if necessary, when we joined the riot. I was prepared to be wounded, beaten, even tortured perhaps. As a practical matter, it would have been no worse than being tortured. But--and you are the only person on Earth I would admit this to--"

Combeferre squeezed Enjolras' hand gently. "Go on."

"I am prepared to die, Combeferre, and I am prepared to die a virgin. It is not a subject of regret--indeed, I would be proud of it. But--" And Enjolras was clutching his hand with a death grip now, looking at him so earnestly it was like seeing some unexplored corner of his very soul flayed open, "but if ever I were to lose that virginity, and in particular if ever I were to discover firsthand what it is to lie with another man--by God, Combeferre. By God, I would not have it be by rape in some squalid prison cell."

Combeferre closed his eyes and pressed Enjolras' hand to his cheek. "May it never come to that," he murmured into his friend's wrist.

"It might," said Enjolras unflinchingly.

"What are you telling me, then? That you wish to lose it otherwise first?"

"Yes."

Combeferre drew a ragged breath. "Tell me what you're asking of me. Specifically. Do you need a contact? The address of a house where men would do what you ask in exchange for money? A friend I would trust to initiate you? Or--"

"Combeferre, I would have it be you."

Silence. Combeferre breathed heavily, as though the sentence had been a physical blow.

Enjolras kept his hand pressed to his friend's face, thumb stroking gently along his cheekbone. "It is presumptuous of me, I know. I do not wish to make assumptions based on your proclivities, or flatter myself that I can invite myself into your bed. It's simply--you know how such things are done. And more than that: just as you are the only person I would confide this in, so you are the only friend I would trust to do such a thing."

Combeferre trembled, his eyes still tightly closed. "You have no idea what you're asking of me."

"Then we needn't speak of this again." Enjolras' hand slipped down to his shoulder, a brotherly touch and no more. "It was a request, not a demand."

"No! I mean--yes. I mean--Enjolras, what is this? I need to know. Do you even--desire this?" said Combeferre in a choked voice. "Is it something to be endured or gotten out of the way? A preparation for later violation? Or are your inclinations... are you like me, under your chastity?"

The mattress dipped next to him, and Combeferre felt Enjolras' arms around him. "I do not know whether I would enjoy it as you do," came Enjolras' voice soft in his ear, soothing him even as Enjolras' breath on his skin made him shiver. "I doubt it. But it would be an intimacy between very dear friends, and a night I could look back on and smile even if future experiences are... less pleasant. Not some joyless thing to be endured."

Combeferre buried his face in Enjolras' shoulder. He would agree, he knew he would. But his insides still writhed at the thought. To be the one to break Enjolras' chastity--and for such a reason! And then there was the fact that he wanted it, wanted it enough to hate himself for it. Wanted it with the confused, all-consuming passion of the infatuated sixteen-year-old he'd been when he and Enjolras first met. Wanted it with the rage and loneliness of a man whose lover had just left him. Wanted it with the ardor of a man afflicted by shameful lusts who finds an impossibly beautiful youth in his bed. Wanted it as a friend who would grant his friend anything on earth he wished. Anything. Even at the risk of having to tear out his own heart and trample it on the floor.

He realized he was kissing Enjolras, kissing him like a drowning man whose mouth has finally reached the air.


End file.
